WATCH: Meskhetian Turks in the Kyrgyz village of Maevka become a target of attacks as rioters loot and burn their houses:

In recent history, they have been persecuted and displaced, starting in 1944, when Stalin deported more than 100,000 of them from Meskheti for alleged disloyalty to the Soviet Union. They were cast across Central Asia and thousands died in the process.

In 1989, some 100 Meskhetian Turks were killed in ethnically motivated violence in present-day Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley, prompting Soviet authorities to evacuate them. A large number were moved to the Krasnodar area.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, they existed in stateless legal limbo, and in Krasnodar, faced state-sanctioned persecution. In recent years, as plans for Georgian repatriation have stalled, there has been a mass immigration of Meskhetian Turks to the United States.

WATCH: Meskhetian Turks in the Kyrgyz village of Maevka become a target of attacks as rioters loot and burn their houses: